Celebrate wood crafts at the Folk Art Center

“Wood Day,” an annual celebration of wood crafts, will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 10, in the Folk Art Center at Milepost 382 on the Blue Ridge Parkway east of Asheville.

Demonstrations include carving, coopering, woodturning, furniture design, dovetail construction and Shaker-inspired designs. Hands-on activities will be provided for children. The 13th annual Carve-Off Competition will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. Carvers must sign up by 12:30 p.m. to participate.

While at the Folk Art Center, there is also “The Wow Factor! SHCG New Member Exhibition” in the Main Gallery. The show features the work of newly juried members from 2010 to the present. The exhibition will be on display through Sept. 8.

This Must Be the Place

Standing in line at the Old Europe coffee shop in downtown Asheville, I said that to my old friend, Jerica. It was a rainy Sunday evening and we’d just gotten out of a documentary screening (about Tim Leary and Ram Dass) at the Grail Moviehouse. While I was mulling over the cosmic nature and theme of the film and what our place is in the universe (as per usual), I looked over at Jerica and smiled.

Reading Room

Of course, we’re intended to read from cover to cover many books — novels, histories, biographies, and more. It would make little sense to begin Mark Helprin’s novel A Soldier of the Great War on page 340 of its 860 pages. We might open and commence reading Paul Hendrickson’s Hemingway’s Boat, on page 241, but we’d miss some of the…